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Tag: Nexus 5

Last Thursday I read that Google would be unveiling their new device overnight to the American market, and I was looking forward to picking one up sometime on Friday.

On Friday, as is my usual routine, I was skimming through Feedly to catch up on my news feeds from overnight before getting out of bed. One of the first articles from the US I hit on announced “Nexus 5 Sold Out”, which had me out of bed quicker than if the house had been on fire.

I hoped that Australia would still be lagging this news by at least a few hours.

Luckily this was true. I managed to place my order on Friday morning before several batches sold out. Over the past weekend every single variant has sold out; it may be a while till new stock shows up.

Originally my order indicated to expect shipping “By 8th November”. Which was fine with me. Then later on last Friday I got an email from Google saying that the device had been “shipped”, meaning they had taken my money and told FedEx to come and pick it up.

It indicated an estimated delivery date for today, the 4th. I wasn’t quite sure I believed it.

Parcel from Google

But there it was, by 6pm as indicated, I was in possession of a small well padded parcel that had come down from a warehouse in Hong Kong over the weekend.

Understated Packaging

The packaging of the phone has a very basic austere look to it. You’d hardly believe it contains the latest gadget from a high-tech company by the look of it.

Pristine new Device

But who cares about the packaging anyway? It’s all about the black piece of plastic with rare-earth elements inside.

It doesn’t look as large as I had feared, this nominally being a 5″-or-so device. Or maybe my Galaxy Nexus is just larger than I thought it was.

It is also very thin, and very light. As with all modern technology, I have a sneaking suspicion that there is nothing inside the shell, and that somehow they have figured out how to make actual honest-to-goodness magic to drive these.

Anyway… let’s get this show on the road!

Updating, … Straight out of the Box

…Or not.

It appears that this Google device that was launched barely 3 days ago already needs an update before it runs. It makes me wonder how long these have been waiting in a warehouse for Google’s announcement.

And then there is the matter of the SIM. I still have a full-size SIM in my Galaxy Nexus, so tomorrow I will have to drop by a Virgin store to get a Micro SIM for this phone.

But I’ve had a play with it on WiFi, and it’s very slick and incredibly helpful. Google’s worked out where I work, where I live, where I go to the gym, and where I get my coffee. It’s basically figured out the centre of my universe and how to get around it.

And everything feels smooth and responsive.

I just have to go through all my apps and re-enter the necessary credentials. Although that can probably partially wait till tomorrow.

And then there is the matter of waiting for the case to arrive. It also comes from HK, but it doesn’t have the benefit of a very determined multinational behind it to speed it along. I’ll just have to be very careful for a week or so till it has some proper protection around it.